Latino writers examine racial, cultural issues

Annual Conversations on Race events begin at IUSB.

Annual Conversations on Race events begin at IUSB.

November 11, 2005|MARGARET FOSMOE

Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, many people have been asking the question: "What does it mean to be an American?" "I maintain that is the wrong question. The question is: 'What does it mean to be human?'æ" Latino writer and journalist Roberto Rodriguez said. He and Patrisia Gonzales, his wife and fellow writer, were the keynote speakers Thursday evening at Conversations on Race IX at Indiana University South Bend. The annual event focuses on issues of race and its effect on society. The couple writes a self-syndicated newspaper column about current affairs from a Latino and indigenous perspective. Rodriguez, who emigrated as a child from Mexico, also has some black and European ancestry. He said people have been telling him for years that he should go back where he came from. Rodriguez noted his Hopi ancestors came from what is modern-day Utah. The Hopis were an independent nation since 1680, he said. He recalled hearing the slur "wetback" as a child from people who didn't look like him. He recalled his father telling him: "We came across a little river. They came across a big ocean." Gonzales sang songs and read aloud from her 2003 book, "The Mud People," about her experiences living for three years in Mexico. She said her time there helped her to learn lessons of her own family history. An important way native people learn about their culture and their past is from stories passed down in families, Gonzales said. Some native people don't know much about their past because their families had to hide their backgrounds to survive, she said. Gonzales, whose ancestry is part Kickapoo and Comanche Indian, said her ancestors mixed with Mexicans in part to survive. Gonzales has visited South Africa and said she relates to the struggles of blacks. "As people of color, we are united by common suffering," she said. The couple showed a portion of their documentary film, "San Ce Tojuan, We Are One." Rodriguez referred to the war in Iraq, saying that for the same price as the war, every person in the United States could be educated bilingually and provided a full college education. Instead of debating affirmative action, we should all be fighting for everyone to have the right to an education, Rodriguez said. "If anybody hereafter says we can't afford it after we've just been spending all these billions and billions of dollars on a fake war. ... We can afford it. We just have to make that decision," he said.